The White House Wants Banks To Help In An All-Out Blitz To Confirm The First Consumer Financial Protection Chief

The Senate is set to vote on Richard Cordray's nomination to head
the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on
Thursday, and the White House is pulling out all the stops to get
him confirmed — including reaching out to banks opposed to the
watchdog agency.

The CFPB was created as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform
bill, and is charged with protecting consumers from the
sometimes-predatory practices of banks and other financial
institutions — drawing suspicion, if not outright hatred from the
financial industry.

The White House is showering seven states whose Senators can
swing the vote with attention — Alaska, Indiana, Iowa,
Nevada, Maine, Tennessee and Utah — to build public support for
Cordray's confirmation.

Reporters from those states will visit the White House on
Thursday to interview Obama, and administration officials will do
radio and television interviews from Washington over the next
several days, said Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh
Earnest.

Brian Deese, the Deputy Director of the National
Economic Council told reporters on Sunday that without a director
the agency is "hamstrung."

"The lack of a director in place creates two really important
problems," he said. "We have an un-level playing field in our
financial system: Banks are being supervised, but payday lenders
are not. This creates an un-level playing field for our banks.
Also the non-bank sector is where we have seen some of the most
harmful and deceptive predatory lending practices — some of which
led to the financial crisis that we're just recovering from."

The White House argument to the banks is simple: While they
may not like the CFPB they are already covered by many of the
consumer protection regulations, while non-bank lenders remain
unregulated until a director for the agency is confirmed —
putting the banks at a disadvantage.

It's unclear if any banks will join Obama in calling for
Cordray's confirmation, but Deese repeated Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner's question from Friday — "Who are [critics of Cordray]
protecting," he asked.

"They are not protecting consumers. They are
certainly not protecting banks because there is an un-level
playing field. They aren't protecting American tax payers, or the
financial system, either."

Cordray was Obama's second choice to head the agency, after it
became clear that Elizabeth Warren, who got the agency set
up, was unconfirmable. Warren is now running for Senate in
Massachusetts.